How Long for Penguin Recovery if All Links Were Removed at Once?

[wiredseo]

Hi, I was wondering if anyone had thoughts on length of time before a Penguin recovery can take place, assuming you removed all the bad links at once?  I have a client that has a Penguin penalty, with all the bad links pointing in to a domain, which then redirected to theirs.  So, I simply had that domain removed and it now returns a 404 instead of redirecting to the main site.  Now all of the bad backlinks do not pass through.

All of this happened at once about 5 weeks ago.  I was glad to discover such an easy solution, but am wondering how long something like this would take.  My initial thought was it would take 2 or 3 months to see recovery, but I was hoping since the issue was fixed so quickly, recovery would be faster.  Any experience with Penguin recoveries with all spam links removed (less that 100 links) at once?

[gazzerman1]

John Mueller from Google has stated many times that the algorithm must first detect that those links are now either removed or disavowed. then you would need to wait for a Penguin refresh, which is probably going to be in the next 2 weeks and only runs every 6 months.

The fact that it is just one site makes me question if the one site was an old penalized version of the site that they tried to 301 their way out of?

Otherwise bad domains normally would not pass the bad links on to the domain. this was talked about in great detail many times in the past as a negative seo tactic where people would buy bad domains and point them at their competitors. Google put a stop to that very quickly.

So I do wonder if there are more than just that issue. Are some of the other links bad but you don't believe they are?

[Travis_Bailey]

Gary brought up a pretty good point. "So I do wonder if there are more than just that issue. Are some of the other links bad but you don't believe they are?" - Gary

I dealt with one situation where many link farms and a particularly spammy domain were pointed at the site overnight. That tripped the Googles BS detector. When I dug into it, I found so much more had happened throughout the years. The initial disavow I proposed would have cut about 50K links if memory serves. The client looked at a few and stated they had paid 'good money' for some of those links and disavowing/removing them would be crazy.

Suffice to say, the process never went through and they kept on 'guest blogging'. (Writing on someone else's site every once in a while and the 'guest blogging' you hear about today are generally two different things.) They kept on 'not recovering'. I check from time to time.

A case of typical manipulation, in my experience, usually involves thousands of links at the least. Your mileage may vary. Without knowing the domain, I can't go into much detail.

[wiredseo]

Hi Gary,

The fact that it is just one site makes me question if the one site was an old penalized version of the site that they tried to 301 their way out of?

Not likely, they're two separate businesses.  I really have no idea who redirected that site to the current site in question (nor does the owner).  All I know is the owner says "they used to use that site"... when I saw the site was penalized and that all the bad links pointed to this other site, I quickly stopped the link flow from the bad site to the current site.

Are some of the other links bad but you don't believe they are?

No, they just have a handful of backlinks from local directories like merchant circle, etc.  They're all the complete norm.

I do wonder though if it has anything to do with the sitewide footer link they have linking back to the SEO company that had gotten them into this mess (also, this particular link is "keyword -rich")

[Travis_Bailey]

Yes, it may likely also have something to do with the sitewide.

It also sounds like you aren't being told the whole story, by your account.

[MarieHaynes]

Assuming that those are the only unnatural links the site had, there's a good chance that when Google refreshes the Penguin algorithm again the site will once again look clean in the eyes of Penguin and be able to rank again.

However, if Penguin refreshes soon, there is a chance that not much will change as Google needs time to revisit each of the offending linking domains and recognize that they are no longer linking to you (even if it is through a 301).  This is why some sites need to sit through two refreshes before they see a recovery.

Keep in mind as well that the site has to have good links in order to see a recovery.  If the previous rankings were only supported by the equity that came through the 301 (prior to getting affected by Penguin) then you might not see much improvement once Penguin refreshes.

Gary mentioned that the next Penguin refresh is probably going to be in the next two weeks.  I don't know that anyone knows that for sure...I'm thinking that this is a guess as it has already been seven months since the last refresh and historically the longest Google has gone between refreshes is 6 months.  I agree that it makes sense for Google to do it soon, but it still could be several months if that's what they decide to do.